Mesa County Sheriff’s Office officials filed a federal lawsuit against Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser earlier this month, claiming that being unable to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement impacts their ability to do their jobs and has kept their office from getting federal grants.

Sheriff Todd Rowell, Undersheriff Matthew King and Captain Curtis Brammer filed the complaint in U.S. District Court on Aug. 7 against Polis and Weiser, claiming that state laws barring state agencies and local government employees from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “unconstitutionally vague.”

The lawsuit comes about a month after Weiser filed a civil lawsuit against a Mesa County Sheriff’s Office deputy who tipped ICE off — via a routinely used multi-agency communications channel — to a college student who had overstayed her visa.

In announcing the July lawsuit, Weiser said it aims to require the deputy to “follow state laws that bar state agency and local government employees from cooperating with federal officials on immigration civil enforcement actions.”

Colorado Article 74 states that state agency employees can’t disclose identifying information that is not publicly available for the purpose of assisting ICE. 

The article’s “vagueness and lack of clarity” along with its “severe penalties and hardships for noncompliance” is confusing for law enforcement agencies and has resulted in Mesa County Sheriff’s Office losing federal grant funding, the lawsuit states. 

It also claims that the interruption in inter-agency cooperation has disrupted criminal investigations in Mesa County, including crimes like drug smuggling, child exploitation and major sex crimes.

Included in what makes the article “vague” are the definition is of “disclosing” or “making accessible” identifying information, the complaint says. Article 74 also doesn’t explain whether there is liability for an employee who discloses the information for purposes not related to ICE, but that later gets used by ICE. 

MCSO employees regularly put identifying information into databases for non-immigration purposes as part of their jobs, but the databases are accessible to federal law enforcement agencies, according to the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the state statute a violation of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, stating that is it void due to its vagueness, or change the law so that employees can share identifying information in a criminal investigation or other circumstances, just not with the sole intent of working with ICE.

A spokesperson for Gov. Polis called the lawsuit “unfortunate” in a statement Monday. 

“Colorado law is clear that law enforcement does law enforcement and not federal civil immigration enforcement,” the spokesperson said. “The Department of Law has a responsibility to follow facts and defend and enforce state law. We’ll continue to take this duty seriously.”

Weiser’s office declined to comment on pending litigation, a spokesperson told The Denver Gazette Monday.